the kitchen clock tics its tocs
the bathtub faucet drips from its wound
the computer in front of me softly hums
like it's singing me a lullaby
my hands stop typing and i listen
the refrigerator just woke up
if i close my eyes and peer
beyond the vapor that clouds my brain
where sound envelopes my being
i can hear the silence through the fog
in the silence i can hear my thoughts
i can hear my conscience whisper
i can hear my confusion from way back when
from times that no longer matter
in places that no longer exist
thoughts and dreams roll through the fog
opportunities for distraction or escape
i let them pass and ignore the noise
soon they will cease their vain attempts
and i will hear a different voice within
epiphanies wait here within the silence
for discovery during events of release
of my fear my guilt and my desire
of lives and places waiting to be set free
so i may see them through crystal clarity
Things That Make Me Feel Light
15 hours ago
9 comments:
This is by far my favorite piece of prose you have ever written. Through your description of achieving clarity you told it in the most clearly visual way possible but hit on all of the senses. This is so good I am not kidding, I read it three times and am off to read it again right now.
I really needed this today, its beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.
really? wow, thanks! and the fact that you took time from your namowrimo to read it is awesome too...you're so spectacularly supportive and fanfriggintastic, jenn!
Jenn...I love you...but this is poetry. Prose is what you read in a novel...everyday narrative writing...or, as defined on dictionary.com: the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse.
That said...Ginger, this is truly beautiful, as Jenn said. =)
i love you both.
while this would be considered poetry because of the line breaks and structure i give it, i think jenn refers to my writing as prose instead of poetry because my style is designed so that you can read it as though it lacks the line breaks...like normal sentences. i prefer to keep it so that no one gets caught in a rhythm pattern or meter. of course, i could be wrong. she may just like to use the word. :)
heehee, nope Ginger you are absolutely correct! Bridgete, I generally refer to all poetic efforts that do not fall into a designated structure (ie verse / stanza in the greater timed / rythmic sense) as prose. The punctuation is not as important as the rhythm that Ginger tends to use through her written words -- it is non-structured / timed and therefore considered prose. At least that's how we were taught in my poetry classes way back when!
Oh & I meant to say that although there is structure as far as the number of lines between breaks and the total number of lines within the piece itself, they are not considered stanzas because there is no set rhythm within each stanza as it reads within in the whole. Does that make sense?
Regardless, I am still in love with this piece whatever you call it lol!
I love you too, Ginger. I only had to say it because the lit nerd in me is very particular about the use of the word prose, it's really a very narrow definition...and I know Jenn doesn't mind being corrected, especially when it's done with love. =)
Your style, by the way, is a lot like beat poetry. In fact, it's almost identical, except beat poetry was more of a commentary on external things (usually societal issues) while your poetry tends to be about more internal things.
i learned the same thing from listening to billy collins, jenn, and he's THE god of poetry, as far as i'm concerned.
my style is so loose because i've never taking any poetry classes and i pull most of my structure and frame work from mr collins' work. it's most excellent to hear that it resembles beat poetry.
i feel like i should turn my work into get graded now, haha! :)
Jenn, it's really interesting that we were taught very different things. It basically sounds like you were given a narrow definition of poetry and anything else is prose, and I was given a narrow definition of prose and everything else is poetry, haha.
As a result of this debate, I'm now going to say that anything in between our definitions is a matter of opinion. =)
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